Saturday May 11, 2002

Day 7, Saturday

It’s party day today. We are going out with Kjetil’s friends. We went to Vestkanten and I bought some clothes. Cindy had told me about this store called “Hennes & Maurits” and she said that one could go there at any time of the year and get a black shirt for $10. She was absolutely right. I bought two black blouses and one black sweater for $10 each and another blouse. Kjetil bought a shirt and trousers. There was an international store there. Not a whole lot of stuff ine international store though.

After we came home from our shopping trip, we showered and ate Pizza. It is a frozen pizza that costs $2.50 and is very very good. We had that and then got dressed for the party. I had on one of my new blouses with my black pants and Kjetil who never compliments me did and that was nice. So we got ready and then Arne (Kjetil’s cousin and friend) and Trond ( Kjetil’s friend) picked us up and we went to Trond’s place. We picked up Kenneth’s sister Kristen on the way and Trond dropped us off at his place and went to pick up Kennneth ( another very good friend of Kjetil) . These guys have been friends for a long long time and Kjetil misses them and partying with them.

Anyway, we all sat and talked and drank. I talked to his friends and we got to know each other a little bit. I am told that they approve of me.

Let me tell you something. These guys can smoke. They are crazy. They smoke so much. Almost everybody does and here you can smoke in the restaurants next to other people and almost everybody smokes so there is great chance that you are surrounded by smoke from all sides.

The whole living room was full of smoke and I hated it. In India this is considered very very bad. Smoking and drinking and boys and girls smoking and drinking together, that’s very very bad. I think that we in India associate drinking and smoking and/or hanging out with boys to be associated with free and open sex.

 It also felt like this was an Indian movie like AmolPalekar movies. I think it’s because of the clothes and thin guys. I think that 70’s fashion is coming back big time. Polyster clothes, straight and diagonally lined fabric etc.

So, anyway we went to a bar and dance place called Ricks at 12:00 . The weather had been bad all day, rainy and cold. The Norwegian’s have a very special party style. They all meet for “Vorspeil” which means pre-party or foreplay. They all bring their own alcohol because it is so expensive to buy alcohol here. So they all drink and get quite drunk and then take a cab and go to town to a pub and dance and maybe buy a beer or  maybe a drink or  two. They all take cabs. Nobody drives after drinking even one beer.

Sometimes, they come back to someone’s place and have an after party called “Narchspeil”.

We got home around 3:30 a.m. and went to bed. We drank some water and so we were okay.

Finally rain in Bergen.

Eating "Grandiosa" (Norwegian national pizza) at home.

Arne drinking vodka with water.

Glen and Trond.

Kjetil got a CD from Glen.

Jaspreet sending text messages to Arne's girlfriend Mari.

Trond, Jaspreet and Arne.